


Life like bindweeds

by Etalice



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Crack, Depression, I regret everything, I'm Sorry, M/M, Magical Realism, i guess ?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 19:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10314989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etalice/pseuds/Etalice
Summary: In November, the fog steals his voice (it clings to his throat and coils inside his lungs and he doesn’t speak for weeks). In December, the frost splits him neatly along the middle, the sharp edges smooth and shiny like broken glass. The January cold tears his armor apart at the seams like acid, his skin blue and numb underneath the wool. His sanity drips away in February, quietly among tempestuous words (violent threats and frantic pleas and unanswered questions).Harry's really depressed. And then, he has sex with a goblin.





	

Later Harry will decide his story starts with March.

In November, the fog steals his voice (it clings to his throat and coils inside his lungs and he doesn’t speak for weeks). In December, the frost splits him neatly along the middle, the sharp edges smooth and shiny like broken glass. The January cold tears his armor apart at the seams like acid, his skin blue and numb underneath the wool. His sanity drips away in February, quietly among tempestuous words (violent threats and frantic pleas and unanswered questions).

But March wraps him in snow and wind like in a shroud and that’s when Harry finally pushes the door to Gringotts open (heavy oak cold under his fingers, the air inside still and musty and proud). He only wants to check his vaults, really, but the hall feels like a church underneath his feet, like a prayer after the relentless noise of the street, after all the shouting and the following and the touching (an autograph, Mr Potter, and we love you, Mr Potter, oh please, oh please, oh) and Harry realizes he hasn’t felt safe in a long, long time but the tall ceilings and stone floors here wrap him in silence like in a blanket. And so, Harry keeps coming.

At first, he’s just clinging to the feeling. Surely he’s allowed this little idiosyncrasy, he thinks. Surely, he deserves a little peace after dying and ending a war all in the same day back in the golden light of August. And so he faces endless tunnels of cobbled streets and hands and faces (you saved us all, you did, you did) until the heavy oak door quietly shuts out the world behind him. He comes until he cannot breathe outside anymore and wishes he could sit forever under the solemn vaults and melt into the stone floors and, by then, he’s already voiceless and naked and insane so he just keeps on coming. He’s got nothing else to lose, he figures.

 His friends notice, of course, but they’ve been noticing since November and still don’t know what to do (if you could just Harry and oh please, Harry, oh please, oh). Hermione sits him down in living rooms, eyes frantic with worry and a plea on her tongue; Ron sits him down in bars and never says a word but Harry can read his thoughts in his face all the same (oh Harry, oh Harry please). It never helps.

By April, Harry has pulled his entire life apart and reorganized it silently around the hours he spends at Gringotts, around oak doors and stone floors and vaults high as the starry sky of June. And when the first blooms of lily of the valley start dotting the ground with fragrance, Griphook walks him home.

It goes like this: Gringotts is closing for the night and Harry is standing in the corner, almost sure he should have melded with the walls by now, quietly verifying if his fingers aren’t turning to stone after all. Griphook just intends to walk him to the door, really, but the evening air whirls in, uninvited and sun-warmed, so he steps out and walks as if it’s what he’s meant to do all along. When they arrive at Harry’s front door, neither of them has uttered a single word but Harry has noticed all the important things like the light patter of footsteps next to his and how the setting sun hit the cobbles and the soothing sound of a pocket watch tucked away in a silk waistcoat. It should end like this but it doesn’t.

The next day, Griphook walks Harry home again.

And because Griphook doesn’t plea, because he never says “Harry” or “please” or “oh” like Harry forgot how to be alive again, Griphook’s quiet footsteps melt into Harry’s routine until they’ve become an integral part of it.

It should only be expected, then, that their bodies like their lives should want to meld together too but the kiss still takes them by surprise. It isn’t one of these carefully planned affairs with days of lingering looks and licked lips and stolen touches. Griphook has been talking about the lesser known aspects of handling angry dragons in confined rooms (their teeth are sharp as needles and their claws glisten like knives and their eyes will set you on fire without so much as a warning) but Harry has been noticing how neatly Griphook fits in the space next to him and not really listening at all. It is a wondrous thing, Harry decides, Griphook’s delicate body, all lightness and limbs and eyes black like a winter solstice night. So Harry swoops down and lets his lips brush against the goblin’s (lightly, lightly, don’t scare him, don’t break him, oh.) When it’s done (Harry straightening his back and Griphook’s lips tightening into a small, painful line) the kiss hangs between them like overripe fruit, it lingers in the air like a swollen secret. They don’t talk about it but Harry feels the pieces of his broken heart like bells in his ribcage for days.

Harry stops going to Gringotts. He stays home and stares at the walls instead, the rattle of his heart deafening in his ears. Hermione stops by, and she sits and she talks (we’re worried, Harry and please, Harry and oh) but she doesn’t hear his heart. Harry can’t hear anything else.

The pieces of Harry’s heart finally settle in the bright May light. They sink in the soil of his blood and germinate, Harry can feel the green tendrils creeping along his spine, tickling his fingertips. In the soft grass scented air of evening, the tendrils rustle gently as he opens the door and sees Griphook standing there, with all his wondrous delicate limbs, eyes black and shiny as deadly nightshade fruit.

The pieces of Harry’s heart shiver tentatively as Griphook’s hands grab his (they’re cold and dry and smooth like marble.) Harry stares at Griphook and Griphook’s eyes are staring back, pleading with all the “Harrys” and the “ohs” and the “pleases” but they’re not the same, really, because Griphook doesn’t want Harry to come back, to stop staring at walls and to quit turning to stone. Griphook wants Harry and Harry’s heart is ringing like bloody Westminster Cathedral. When they kiss, it’s feverish and clumsy and wonderful.

Harry’s pressed onto the carpet and he’s quite certain the hands on his skin will set him on fire (they’re tugging at his shirt and grabbing his hair and searing paths onto his back). When he feels a tug at his trousers, the words he’d been caging behind his teeth tumble down in a mess of “please” and “oh” and “don’t run away again” (even though Harry doesn’t know who has been doing the running away).

This is how to be alive, then, Harry thinks, his skin pressed against the warmth of another man. He’s stabbing hot, sharp kisses on shoulder blades and exploring the vast swathes of skin with his fingertips (lightly, lightly, don’t burn him, don’t break him, oh). The tendrils of his heart are winding around his ribs and Harry is afraid he might burst with this sudden influx of life. “I missed you”, Harry says as the other man’s beautiful lithe thigh presses between his legs (or perhaps, he doesn’t say anything at all, overwhelmed by the sensation in his throat and in his belly and at his fingertips). Griphook is babbling (Harry, oh Harry, oh please) and Harry’s certain he’s not turning to stone now, but he thinks he might become entirely light or sound (oh please, oh). And then, Harry’s heart is ringing like all the bells on Christmas day, as he goes deaf and blind in a white-hot flash of pleasure. Life inside him grows and blooms like bindweeds.

Later, much later, with the other man asleep underneath him, Harry will press a kiss to his feverish forehead (lightly, lightly, don’t wake him) and decide this part of the story ends with the first moon of June, bright and round, kissed by the warm sky and bathed in the sweet, heady scent of honeysuckle and lulled by soft, satiated sighs (this is how he lost his voice, and found it again, and told the tale).


End file.
